Geographic Information Systems (GIS)Select 'Read More' for further information on what GIS is, and how it is used in the classroom.
For further information on GIS go to:-The GIS Portal - http://www.gisportal.com . This site provides links to other GIS sites.
What is GIS?Imagine an overhead projector with a number of overhead transparencies sitting on it. Each transparency contains data about your local area, drawn to the same scale and can therefore be integrated with the others. But each transparency deals with a different set of information: roads, landuse, bus routes, census divisions, services and facilities, and ecological zones: 
Standing before the overhead, you mix and match the layers at will, magically changing classification schemes, modifying symbols, colours, patterns, and combinations. You can zoom in and out, seeing all the information available or only the data you specify, comparing this layer with that feature, exploring the data in every way imaginable. As you play with these layers of information, relationships appear. This is a rough analogy to demonstrate the theory behind GIS. Through the power of a computer and software, using a wide range of electronic data, and with an eye toward patterns and relationships, GIS users explore information about places. Through creative questioning, careful analysis, and even random exploration, GIS users can examine patterns and relationships between anything that can be mapped. In short, GIS is a tool for learning about the world and all that is in it.
Why Use GIS in Schools?GIS has many benefits to education and not just in the traditional realms of geography and the social sciences.
GIS:
o allows your students to develop their spatial literacy
o enhances your area of study by engaging your students in the classroom
o lets you and your students examine and solve local problems using local data
o gives your students opportunities to develop their IT skills in a meaningful way
o provide your students with access to IT skills that are currently highly desirable across the country
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